1. Field
Example embodiments of the present invention may relate to a storage medium having stored therein a game processing program for generating an image obtained by shooting a 3-dimensional virtual space by a virtual camera, and a map image obtained by shooting the 3-dimensional virtual space, for example, from above, and relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing system, and an image processing method for generating the same.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventionally, there is known a technique of shooting a 3-dimensional virtual space by a virtual camera to display the resultant image, and along with this, displaying a map of the 3-dimensional virtual space. For example, a game system disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-325973 displays a 3-dimensional game screen of a game space which is a 3-dimensional virtual space as viewed from a given viewpoint, and a 2-dimensional map which is a planar view of the game space as viewed from above.
However, the game system disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-325973 separately stores data for configuring the 3-dimensional virtual space and data for configuring the 2-dimensional map. Therefore, the sizes of a necessary storage medium (optical disc, ROM, etc.) and a memory (RAM etc.) for temporarily storing data for depicting an image increase. In addition, if a plurality of 3-dimensional virtual spaces (game stages) are present, data of 2-dimensional maps corresponding to the respective 3-dimensional virtual spaces must be prepared. Therefore, also in this respect, the sizes of a necessary storage medium and a necessary memory increase.